


Lorelei's Heart

by Lusksinger



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Dragons, Fantasy, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14204076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lusksinger/pseuds/Lusksinger
Summary: The silver dragon Lorelei has to deal with one of his children having gone rogue.





	Lorelei's Heart

The elves maintained a bit of a checkered past when they fled the land after Ferreus' attack. As the generations went on, the story of Lorelei and Ferreus had been warped and twisted among the elves to the point that Ferreus seemed the slaughtered hero gathering up gold to dish out to the people of the land. The more they spoke the lie, the more right it seemed. After all, hadn't they been cheated in all the dealings with the dwarves during trade? The humans were just as easily a victim as they were and they continued to mourn the loss of human life over thousands of years. The wood elves took their natural camouflage and sought to continue the great and mighty Ferrus' work. Rather than revile him, they came to worship him and turned to pursuing sneakier, stealthier skills while abandoning their natural gifts for farming, art, and music.

When their young were unfortunately orphaned given the new life they sought, Lorelei inevitably came for them. Rather than welcome him, they tried to fight him off. Though it initially stung his heart, he soon became accustomed to it and bore them no ill will. None gave Lorelei the respect he had earned among the elven people and the more he came for orphaned children, the more resentment they cultivated for him. Eventually one rose up against him, one they praised for having the spirit of Ferreus himself within him. Morus, an elf of barely seven-hundred-years, felt empowered by the mere thought of the long-dead sea dragon. He stood in the streets of villages and screamed from the top of his lungs a warning to passers-by.

Lorelei was using strong majicks to hypnotize and possess his enemies. He was stealing children to raise up an army to consume the land and take for his own. The old silver dragon was good at making promises he never intended to keep. He had once been raised in the cave he'd taken from the dwarves and had only just been lucky enough to escape. If they did not strike down the Great Wyrm now, they may never get the chance.

As expected, none heeded the obviously inaccurate claims of Morus. So Morus instead appealed to his elven brothers - who would take up arms in the greatest fight of their lives? Only a handful rose to join him. They gathered weapons of choice and bade farewell to their families.

With eyes and ears all across the land, Lorelei stood beyond the grove of Dragon Trees and await Morus' approach. A measly group of twenty individuals approached him with Morus at their head. It was clear that they found him to be an easy mark given that they were locking eyes with such a decrepit old man. He regarded them with a soft gaze, but spoke solely to Morus first.

"You would come to slay your father?"

Morus responded with rage, making it clear that he did not accept him as a father in any respect. "For all we know, you murder our parents in order to steal us away!" The men behind him cheered in agreement. Behind Lorelei, the nearest Dragon Trees rustled their leaves in a non-existent breeze, but did nothing else for the moment.

"Morus, I took you in when your parents perished. They saw fit to seek a way that led to ruin and all I could do was ensure you had a chance to survive." He strode calmly toward the wood elf while maintaining eye contact, his arms still folded behind his back. "I took you in and cared for you. I taught you strong majick and gave you a chance to hone your skill with a sword." Lorelei glanced only momentarily at the sword Morus was pointing towards him - not in a way that suggested he had only just noticed it, but instead to enhance his point. "Instead of taking up arms to protect others as I taught you, you would instead point it at the heart that tried to give you a second chance."

Morus cut him off mid-speech, "You taught me to fight so that I might slaughter innocents! You want this world for yourself and me and my people will not stand for it!" The cheers intensified behind him.

Lorelei gave a small, sad smile. "What would you have me do, Morus? Should I let the young starve out in the wilds? Should I have them suffer death to the elements? What would you have me do?"

It seemed there had been quite enough talk and so Morus lunged instead at Lorelei's chest with the sword. Lorelei barely had to side-step to dodge the attack. He'd already made note of the tensed muscles in Morus' arm wielding the sword and had needed barely a half-step to move from its path. Morus went rolling across the grass and into the path of the Dragon Trees.

"You're not Ferreus, Morus." Lorelei said, turning his back to the men who'd journeyed with the elf. "You're not a dragon. You're misguided by years of lies."

"YOUR LIES." Morus lunged at him again as his men ran forward to attack the old man's back. Before either reached him, Lorelei shifted into his dragon form. Though they had had many encounters over the years after Lorelei had sent him away from the cave, this was the first where Morus had been actively violent in any way other than verbally. Rather than strike, Lorelei's massive form hovered over the small group. His shape blotted out the sun from their eyes. More than half of the elves gathered took several steps back and resisted the urge to run. Morus stood strong and firm, "Raise your bows, men!"

Hesitantly, they did as asked.

"Strike true!" he ordered, and they let the strings sing as their arrows departed.

Even in this form, Lorelei's small smile seemed obvious. He swatted the pitiful onslaught aside and continued staring at Morus. "Send your men away, Morus. This is between us."

Though Morus understood the words, to the ears of his accomplices it sounded the equivalent of a guttural dog growl. "AGAIN." While they knocked their newest arrows, Morus unleashed a breath weapon that Lorelei himself had taught him. At this, the dragon could only laugh. Though he'd learned so much, he'd also learned so little. The attack did absolutely nothing to him.

"Go home, Morus." Done with senseless and unplanned attacks, the silver dragon turned and gave the accompanying elves the first bit of attention since they'd arrive. He chased them off in the direction of the forests. Almost all of them dropped their bows in their haste to get away. No attacks had been made from the dragon himself and when he rejoined Morus it was in his human form. "Again, Morus, go home. This feud has no merit and you are ill-prepared to carry out a true fight with me. Go home."

Embarrassed and enraged, Morus stomped away as Lorelei collected the discarded weaponry to take back to the cave to teach his children with. The rustling of the Dragon Tree leaves quieted as he walked among them on the long trek home.

Several years passed before he saw Morus again. It seemed Morus had taken his words to heart and had amassed a group of elves that he believed stood a chance against the Great Wyrm. They came at night and, alone, Morus entered the grove of Dragon Trees. Their leaves shook like the warning of a rattlesnake. One moment the grove was empty and the next Morus turned to lock eyes with the angry old human. His eyes were fully dragon as he stared down Morus.

"You would come at night to try to kill me, you fool? You would come so far into my grove and endanger my children?" he spoke in Draconic, wanting to scare the elf off with the mere power of his words alone.

Morus did not back away. "I'm freeing those children into the free lives they deserve."

The grove lit up unexpectedly as the dozens of elves who'd agreed to fight arrived. Some held lit torches, some had spells casting lights in the form of fireflies, and the others held weapons drawn. Lorelei took it all in without turning his gaze away from Morus. As far as he was concerned the others were all misled, but Morus himself was unhinged and had to be dealt with.

"Cease or be dealt with."

With a sneer, Morus raised his arms wide and laughed in the old man's face. "I will not yield."

Lorlei rushed him and, before the elves surrounding them could do anything to protect their leader, the Dragon Trees shot leaves in a tornado around them shielding the two from their view. In confusion, the others hesitated only briefly before firing spells at the tornado of leaves. Some leaves dispersed, but not all, leaving the majick-users confused. No one had ever actually dealt with the trees before and had no idea how they worked. In a fury and a panic, they continued firing spells, but could not pierce the leafy shield.

Meanwhile in the flurry of leaves, Lorelei and Morus exchanged blows. While Morus swung wildly and with reckless abandon, the human moved as though it were the steps to a dance he'd memorized perfectly. Whenever Morus got in close enough, Lorelei would exhale a cloud of icy cold wind into his face. It would disorient the elf and cause him to stumble. The more he stumbled, the more agitated he became and the more mistakes he made.

Once Morus came to expect the icy blast, he'd shield his face with his free arm and so Lorelei shifted his teeth to fangs and took the flesh and tore it aside so that he was forced to face the dragon. For the first time, with his arm firmly grasped in the dragon's teeth, Morus looked afraid. It wasn't in the elf to back down, however, so he fought through the fear.

Once he'd bitten Morus, Lorelei became more aggressive rather than reserved. His skin shone like glittering scales and his eyes held the glow of his much larger form. His mere presence before Morus gave him a deep-rooted fear he could not manage to shake. With horror, he realized the hand Lorelei had just reached out to him with was shifting into a smaller, but still obvious, dragon claw. The talons ripped at his chest and tore his clothes and armor like paper.

When the Great Wyrm spoke to Morus, it was in a booming voice, "You should have yielded, my son!" The talons pierced through Morus' chest and kept digging in until they closed around his heart. With one powerful wrench, the heart came free from the chest and Morus fell dead. As the swirling leaves fluttered lamely to the ground, the scene took a moment of adjustment to Morus' followers. They instantly fled once they'd realized that what Lorelei held now in his dragon-like hand was the still-warm heart of their leader. As they fled, Lorelei turned back to the crumpled form of his son and knelt at his side. He openly wept, gathering the man in his arms and holding him close. The blood stained his yellow robes and soaked through leaving the stench of blood hanging heavily around him. "I am sorry, my son, that I failed you in this way."

He carried Morus over one shoulder and his heart in the other, following the path to the ocean, while the grove of Dragon Trees stood silent on his trek.

**Author's Note:**

> _you would not believe your eyes_  
>  how a voice could hypnotize   
> promises are only lies from Loreley   
> in a shade of mossy green  
> seashell in her hand   
> she was born the river queen  
> ne'er to grace the land... 
> 
> *~*~*~*
> 
> I was going to begin writing the backstory to Felicie, the crush of my main character in the D&D campaign I'm playing, but I realized that I needed a bit of a prologue before her story began. So here we have poor, foolish Morus (literally Latin for fool or blunderhead) taking on Lorelei for what he believes will lead to a better, and brighter future. I'd imagine Lorelei picked Morus up when he was slightly older and had heard stories from his family about the great Ferreus and Lorelei fighting along the ocean's edge. I'm sure they blamed him for the tornadoes that tore apart their homes when they fled the battlefield. When they turned to lives of thieving, deception, and murder it meant a loss of respect from the surrounding people and leaving their children to suffer on their own should they die out on their expeditions. Lorelei takes in a lot of elves due to this and Morus is one of them, but he bears a great resentment towards the silver believing that he took something from them rather than gave them something. Though I didn't write it, I imagine the first interaction with his 20 men and himself versus Lorelei that he was cocky enough to not only come unarmored, but to come bare-chested with a tattoo of the fabled sea dragon on his bare skin. As if to boast in Lorelei's face that he would be nothing compared to the Great Wyrm who came before him. It makes more sense why would be smiling so sadly at him in a "you poor deluded fool" sorta way.
> 
> I don't have sympathy for Morus. I don't like him. But Lorelei loves his children, so I know he would be sad and it would hurt probably forever. I imagine he set his body into the ocean and replaced his heart before doing so, but who knows~


End file.
